From the course: Digital Media Foundations
Join today to access over 22,600 courses taught by industry experts.
How 1s and 0s make larger numbers
From the course: Digital Media Foundations
How 1s and 0s make larger numbers
- [Instructor] So, how do these two numbers give us the incredible range of things computers can do? The first thing we need is a way to turn these zeroes and ones into bigger numbers. A single zero or one is called a bit. We need bytes. A byte is eight bits. It might sound a bit complicated when you first hear it because it's such an unusual word to use, but bits and bytes are the building blocks of the computer world. The system is so simple and so elegant, it makes computers work robustly and dependably. And it works like this. If you line up a set of eight binary bits, you can assign each one a number. The numbers used start at one and double each time until they get to 128. So, we have one, two, four, eight, 16, 32, 64, and 128. And let's just say that zero means off and one means on. So, if a binary bit is on, we'll add that number to any other numbers that are on to get any number from zero to 255. Let's try this out. All zeroes would make zero. If the first binary bit is on…
Download courses and learn on the go
Watch courses on your mobile device without an internet connection. Download courses using your iOS or Android LinkedIn Learning app.